My shower screen has now been saved!

[danilius 118]

I have a glass shower screen held in place by some plastic gubbins. Of course one broke, and I told myself the first thing I'm going to print when I get an Ultimaker is a new part for the shower. That promise took almost six months to materialise, but here are the results finally...

Freecad model:

Half of the broken part:

The prints:

Action shot:

[ultiarjan 1,223]

i love it when a plan comes together

[danilius 118]

Oh yeah, and in this case, not only did it work first time, but the fit was so tight I had to tap it gently into place. Now it only remains to be seen how long it lasts for.

I think this is a superb example of what manufacturers now have the power to do: allow their customers to save something that would otherwise have been discarded. I have no idea who made my shower screen, where it was bought and so on.

But if the shower screen came with a QR code, then one should be able to download all the relevant files, just as with an Ultimaker, and print out a spare. This gives a small company a chance to build up brand loyalty, which is otherwise impossible to do today.

For example, my son wanted to repair my laptop yesterday (OK, we are not talking about a small company now, but the principle applies). Since the manufacturer rather thoughtfully provides teardown videos all he had to do was watch and "monkey do". So, I am far more likely to buy the same brand again because of this (amongst other considerations of course). Now, if they had the files for printing new shell components, they would have an even greater chance of getting another sale.

This is certainly not a niche area for 3D printing, and probably something we should all be exploring for our own benefit!